


hunger of two

by rynleaf



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Bisexual Cassandra Pentaghast, Dalish Elven Culture and Customs, F/F, First Time, Post-Battle Tensions are High, Sexual Content, contracts and all, vaguely fae-like elven culture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-10
Updated: 2019-06-10
Packaged: 2020-04-24 05:40:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19166932
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rynleaf/pseuds/rynleaf
Summary: Cassandra is ready for it to be a fast, almost violent affair. Lavellan in action is like a summer storm—twenty minutes of ozone-scented intensity, unashamed and radiant, leaving barmaids and soldiers and healers dazed and a little bit in love.It is not that Cassandra is a blushing virgin. Far from it. It is only that to be looked at the way Lavellan looks at her now, eyes half-lidded and lashes translucent in the afternoon sun, is a singularly intense experience.





	hunger of two

**Author's Note:**

> thank you Mari for the beta, and Adel for the cheerleading and the occasional untangling of tenses.
> 
> the story is otherwise dedicated to a woman whom I miss greatly: this is for you, you terrible, wondrous fey thing.

Cassandra is ready for it to be a fast, almost violent affair. Lavellan in action is like a summer storm—twenty minutes of ozone-scented intensity, unashamed and radiant, leaving barmaids and soldiers and healers dazed and a little bit in love. She isn’t shy about it. The Chargers keep a barely-secret tally between her affairs and the Iron Bull’s—there is a significant pot of money involved, Varric says, and Cremiscius Aclassi sleeps with the cabinet key around his neck. Lavellan, of course, finds it hilarious.

It is not that Cassandra is a blushing virgin. Far from it. It is only that to be looked at the way Lavellan looks at her now, eyes half-lidded and lashes translucent in the afternoon sun, is a singularly intense experience. 

Cassandra steps in and twists her arm. Lavellan’s training sword clatters away. Instead of picking it up as she did the previous five times, she plants her hands on her hips and grins unkindly: sharp teeth and freckles and fey-narrow eyes make her look especially inhuman in this moment, her  _ vallaslin _ a collection of pale scars against her dark skin. 

The first time Cassandra saw that look was deep in the Fallow Mire: Redcliffe’s spectacular mess was only a week behind them and the argument would likely have ended in blows if Cassandra wasn’t too dignified to  _ brawl _ over something inane like scouting provisions, or elfroot storage.

“I could think of so many better ways to spend our time than this,” Lavellan said with that knife-edge smile and Cassandra, worked up and furious, spat:

“As if I would ever sleep with something like  _ you.” _

They work it out, after they refuse to speak to each other in civil tones for months and the Inquisition nearly crumbles with it. It is an unsteady and grudging truce. Mutual respect comes later, and with it a surprising tenderness: a spray of baby’s breath on Cassandra’s pillow, a carved wooden dragon, a book of poetry deposited on her desk with an air of feigned nonchalance. Cassandra overhears a group of Dalish women giggle and sigh and whisper:  _ The Inquisitor is courting! _

Solas wrinkles his nose and mutters: “Maybe this time she will mean it.”

Cassandra takes a deep breath, sheds her leathers in favour of an apron and cooks the spiciest Nevarran-style curry she can manage. 

Lavellan makes several obscene noises into her first bite. 

Now, standing in the opposite corner of the training ring they set up for Cullen’s soldiers, Lavellan gives her that very same look: it promises things that make Cassandra’s stomach tighten in anticipation, the memory of a thousand small, strategic touches burning on her skin. A clap on the shoulder. A tight grip on her wrist. Hands cradling her cheeks after a skirmish that got close, too close. 

Lavellan stalks slowly closer, sinewy and gorgeous like a predator on the hunt. Cassandra swallows.

“I have it on good authority that the Inquisitor’s quarters are empty at this hour,” Lavellan says. 

And so it happens that their first time—maybe not the last, Cassandra thinks in the moment,  _ Maker don’t let it be the last _ —is spent spread out on a bed lavishly large, for so long Cassandra forgets to count every minute. Lavellan is unrestrained in her desire, and it makes Cassandra hungry too: a glutton for every kiss and caress, each twist of Lavellan’s fingers between her shaking thighs.

It is singular, imperfect and wonderful. 

“Hey,” Lavellan says some time later and when Cassandra opens her eyes, she finds her kneeling over her with an expression so uncharacteristically solemn, she cannot help but laugh, breathless and a little dazed.

“I'm all right,” Cassandra says. She expects smugness, a grin, clothes to be pulled back on and the day to continue as it were.

Instead, Lavellan strokes her cheekbones with her thumbs and burrows under Cassandra’s arm like there’s no other place she’d rather be.

 

\--------------

 

And so it goes.

 

\--------------

 

The final moments are almost fearless: there is nothing left of it by then, perhaps, as Cassandra blocks another blast of corrupted fire and skids backwards with the force of it. Corypheus laughs while he calls down thunder. The screech of dragons overhead echoing through the crash is a stab in the ear.

It is hard, so hard to get close. Sera falls back with a broken arm and the Iron Bull is holding Dorian up by the shoulder, blood running down his chest and his bad leg.

They are losing. Somehow, after all this, they are  _ losing _ .

Cassandra risks a glance to the left. Lavellan is panting through clenched teeth, clutching her staff with bloodied fingers. The blade is crusted with demon entrails. Cassandra cannot help the feeling of numb dread that creeps up her throat: the end of the line, she thinks, wrung out and barely standing.

Chunks of rock rain down on her shield and Corypheus towers over them, impossible and monstrous, and Cassandra grits her teeth and lifts her sword. 

The world is not lost until one of them is still standing.

She will not watch Lavellan die.

The blows come one after another, heavy, and her knees buckle with the weight. She cries out against the pressure, muscles seizing with effort but it’s not enough, not enough—

A shadow zips past. Cassandra catches the edge of a mad grin. The blow of magic relents so suddenly that she falls, sword clattering away, head swimming with the backlash and she can’t help but look, helpless, as Corypheus turns on— 

Lavellan drops her staff. She looks fragile against that terrible sky: a wraith, limbs like a spider, her armour haphazardly fastened and Cassandra stumbles to her feet to catch up, to stop her before—

Maybe fear is infinite, then. 

Lavellan opens her arms. The air rips open with an explosion of green light and Corypheus screams, her screaming with him in fury and pain, falling to her knees while the air itself crystallises into ice between her spread fingers.

Cassandra stumbles to a halt.

Corypheus falls slowly against the upward pull of the tear in the sky, body wrenched apart by the opposing forces of the Fade and the earth beneath his feet.

Lavellan lifts her face towards the towering clouds and laughs like a maniac.

 

\--------------

 

It is a miracle they all make it back in once piece.

Lavellan is still limping at the party. There are bruises under her eyes and a bluish tint to her fingers from the lyrium the healers made her drink, Marked arm carefully bandaged after that stupid, stupid stunt—Cassandra swallows the sour mix of anger and relief, the memory of the Fade pressing against her skin still too fresh to forget. Close. Too bloody  _ close.  _ Colours and sounds bloom around her with impossible depth as she empties her glass of sweet wine, the glorious feeling of victory still a far thing behind this strange sense of being suspended mid-air.

It’s over.

It’s  _ over. _

Lavellan glances at her from across the room—a deliberate sweep of eyelashes, a flash of teeth, the curve of a smile—and Cassandra’s heart surges in her chest.

Josephine and Leliana put her in a dress. It is long and green and the skirt is cut high enough that her thigh peeks out when she walks. The low back shows skin and lean muscle. Freckles. Pale branches curling around her spine, a tree’s crown. Cassandra knows exactly where it ends: roots hugging Lavellan's hips and thighs, twisting and never crossing. She traced the lines with her fingers so many times, she forgets the exact number.

It makes her furious, somehow.

She knows exactly what Lavellan would taste like, how her skin would feel, how beautiful she would be above her, inside her. She knows—because she has imagined it many times, lying awake at night, scarcely breathing—what she would look like, lying on the ground with her limbs broken and eyes staring into nothing.

It is unbearable. The thought consumes everything. Cassandra pulls herself up straight as Lavellan turns away to smile at yet another Orlesian bootlicker, fingers smoothing the man’s lapel and oozing charm—it is so very hard sometimes, watching her slip seamlessly into the Inquisitor’s skin hours after brushing with death. A miracle of modern medicine. The half-healed cut on her jawline looks savagely elegant, enough to make her look dangerous and foreign and beautiful. Orlais loves her, swallows her whole _. _

She pulls their strings with a glittering smile. 

Cassandra twitches with the desire strip it all away. Dress. Bruises. This honeyed mirror-image of the woman she loves. She wants to press her fingers to every inch of flesh she can find to make sure they are still breathing: to feel the warmth of living, hear the sound Lavellan makes when she kisses her just behind the shell of her ear. 

Lavellan tilts her head and smiles at her above her shoulder. Cassandra flushes. 

The party has only just started. Impatience is unbecoming, Aunt Filomena has always said, and Cassandra has learned the lesson well: no carnal desire used to govern her so, before Lavellan. 

_ Maybe I am ruined forever, _ she thinks, digging her fingers into her palms. The dress uniform feels too damn tight. Varric gives her a knowing look over the long table, and she takes comfort in scowling at him like the world hasn’t almost ended, like things will continue on the way they have before. 

Maker, but she is frightfully off-balance tonight. 

She turns to lift a canapé off a tray: the server rattles off ingredients in Orlesian, half of which she has no hope to understand. Cassandra waves him away. The bite is sweet and savoury, some kind of meat paste and candied dates, perhaps. A hint of pepper. The bottom is a seedy oat biscuit familiar from Syhold’s kitchens, it crumbles into the rest with a satisfying crunch. 

“Hello,” Lavellan says behind her.

Cassandra’s heart claws its way up her throat as she turns around.

There are only inches between the stiff collar of her formal coat and Lavellan’s almost-bare shoulders. She is grinning—it’s her real smile, canines sharp and eyes full of mirth. Behind her the noise picks up as the Chargers engage in what looks like something between a boasting contest and a brawl. 

“Leliana has arranged for a distraction,” Lavellan says. “Let’s leave early.”

“Josephine will not be happy,” Cassandra replies faintly. Lavellan leans in, the tapering edge of her right ear brushing Cassandra’s cheek.

“I saw you earlier,” she whispers. “Would you truly murder that poor snail-eating sod over my honour, I wonder?”

“You have no honour,” Cassandra replies, and closes her eyes at Lavellan’s throaty laugh. 

“You like me that way,  _ vhenan _ ,” she says. When Cassandra opens her eyes again, she only sees the door to the highest tower swing shut. 

She drags a shaking hand through her hair and follows.

Lavellan is waiting, of course. There is a shadow leaning against the wall under the first landing window, haloed in the silvery glow of moonlight. They clash with familiar momentum. Lavellan’s kiss is hungry and tastes like wine and Cassandra licks into it to chase the feeling, pushing her up against the wall with a strength that makes Lavellan sigh and arch her back. Quick hands open Cassandra’s coat and burrow up her back between the heavy cloth and her shirt. Cassandra drags her hand down Lavellan’s side, thumb briefly brushing against her breast, and kisses the answering noise off her lips.

“Upstairs,” Lavellan breathes. She shoves Cassandra in the shoulder until she steps back and they stare at each other in the half-light, five seconds, ten. 

Lavellan grins then, slow and smug, dimples and freckles dancing on brown skin. Cassandra bends to catch her behind the knees and lift her up. The dress rides up as Lavellan laughs and winds her legs around Cassandra’s middle. She clutches her close and noses the arch of her neck as they stumble up, up, turn after turn.

Lavellan bounces on the mattress, hair a coppery mess curling over her forehead.

“You,” Cassandra says, kneeling over her on the covers, “you almost—”

“Yes,” Lavellan says, pushing up for a kiss. Cassandra peels the dress off one shoulder and strokes her thumb over the neckline. She is so full—full of relief and the last dregs of a towering rage, full of desire so much that she almost chokes with it. Lavellan yanks her shirt open, pulls her down and chases the line of her neck, her collarbones. Cassandra grabs her wrists and pins them above her head. Lavellan gasps, arches her back—her eyes are almost black with want, looking up from behind pale lashes. Cassandra knocks her forehead against hers.

“Never again,” she whispers into her face. “You will never rush ahead again, you will not get yourself killed, you—”

Lavellan yanks a hand free to touch Cassandra’s cheek. Cassandra sucks in a helpless breath.

A rush of icy air knocks her off-balance then, and she finds herself sprawling on her back with Lavellan straddling her hips, looking savage and triumphant in the pale moonlight. Cassandra is distracted by a weight between her thighs, a hot mouth drawing a trail of kisses down her neck.

“Next time,” Lavellan says, “I promise.” She catches a nipple with her mouth and another with her fingers and Cassandra is swallowed by sensation. She scrabbles for purchase. Lavellan takes her hand. “I will come back next time, and the time after that. I promise.”

“You almost,” Cassandra repeats, gasping. Lavellan takes her hand and places it on the cut on her jaw, presses it into the wound. Her eyes are hard. 

_ “Almost,” _ she says. She drags the hand down to her chest and pushes it close, close. Her heartbeat drums a hurried rhythm against Cassandra’s skin. “I am not dead, and neither are you.”

And just like that, Cassandra stops fighting.

Lavellan strips her boots, her belt, her breeches. She kisses and nips her way between Cassandra’s breasts and down her ribcage, strokes her hips with her thumbs and opens her legs with agonising slowness.

“I love you,” she says, and draws a finger down her belly. Cassandra shudders. The finger reaches deeper. Lavellan never looks away.

“Please,” Cassandra breathes. Her voice sounds so plaintive, so fragile—she has to look away, bury her face in the crook of her elbow because otherwise she might—

A tongue probes her entrance and licks a slow trail up. Cassandra cries out. Again. Again. It’s a pace she is intimately familiar with, a barely-there sensation, lips moving as if they have all the time in the world. She bites the arm that covers her face. Lavellan reaches up with her free hand and tugs it down.

“Look at me,” she says, “I want you to look at me. I want to hear you.”

It is almost too much, the sight of Lavellan buried between her thighs, the green dress trailing over the edge of the bed. Her arm lifts again and is caught by a quick hand.

“No.”

A stroke. Cassandra bites down on the noise that rises from her throat. Lavellan stops and stares at her with such intensity, Cassandra burns, burns.

“Sorry,” she pants and her hips roll involuntarily upward. Lavellan kisses her thigh. Closer. Closer. She pushes two fingers inside and wraps her lips around her clit, slow, slow, a pressure at once overwhelming and not quite enough.

“Please,” Cassandra says, again and again. She tangles her fingers into the sheets as the rhythm picks up with agonising slowness and finally she’s there, there, on the precipice, falling.

_ “Ar lath ma,” _ Lavellan whispers. Cassandra pulls her up, only half-aware.

“Oh please,” she mutters into her neck.

She watches as Lavellan’s hand slides under the dress, follows her fingers and traces the line where they disappear inside her. They breathe against one another until Lavellan exhales a long, shuddering cry, legs snapping closed and trapping Cassandra’s fingers. Cassandra kisses the tip of her ear. Lavellan turns onto her back, eyes closed, panting into the silvery darkness. 

“Take  _ that _ , Corypheus,” she says then, grinning from ear to ear. She makes a rude gesture at the ceiling. 

Cassandra closes her eyes and holds her tighter.

 

\--------------

 

Keeper Deshanna Istimaethoriel squints up, puts her hands on her hips and arches an eyebrow in Lavellan’s direction. Lavellan lifts her chin and squeezes Cassandra’s hand in a proprietary way. 

“I choose her,” she says. The Keeper sighs. 

“I suppose I should have suspected,” she says, and stifled laughter ripples through the rest of the clan spread out around them. “You always had a thing for fucking  _ shemlen.”  _

Lavellan shrugs, grinning. 

“Could’ve done worse than Nevarran royalty,” she says, accent turning slow and sweet with every sentence to match that of the others, bustling cousins and aunts and uncles, children in various states of undress. Keeper Deshanna turns her shrewd gaze at Cassandra. 

“So you come with a sizeable dowry then, princess?” 

There are a few scandalized gasps. Cassandra glances at Lavellan, who looks entirely unconcerned: her eyes glint with mirth as she hands Cassandra a pack, then retreats into the circle of her family. Cassandra clears her throat. 

_ Right. _

“I come bearing three gifts,” she says, and Keeper Deshanna’s eyebrows rise in surprise. “One is for Above,” Cassandra continues and lifts a length of sky-blue silk out of the pack. The Keeper takes it, fingers the embroidery, then holds the two ends out to form a cradle. 

“One is for the Between,” Cassandra says, and spills a handful of seeds onto the feathery fabric. The clan moves closer almost as a singular entity. A woman with dirt on her cheek and under her fingernails nods. 

“And one is for Below,” Cassandra finishes, laying a pair of ornate obsidian daggers on top. She clears her throat again. “With these three gifts, I ask for one blessing.” 

“Well,” Keeper Deshanna says. Lavellan bounces on her heels, smiling. “I suppose we better prepare a feast and draw up a contract, then.”


End file.
